This page is for you if in 2025 you have:
- Made deposit to or withdrawals from an investment account;
- Used our robo‑investor or micro‑investing service, even if you did not make any new investments in 2025;
- Used a savings deposit or term deposit within the investment account system, including signing an agreement or receiving a payout;
- Carried out transactions with publicly offered shares, bonds, or ETFs (i.e., instruments listed on a securities market or publicly issued). For example, Enefit Green’s share buyback is also a transaction whose tax implications should be considered;
- Carried out transactions with investment fund units offered by SEB
- Invested in the 3rd pillar pension system (including the New Generation Pension and unit‑linked life insurance contracts).
The declaration and taxation of investments
The declaration and taxation of investments depend on the system you use. Below is an overview of the key rules of the regular system and the investment account system.
Regular system:
- Every securities sale transaction must be declared.
- Income tax liability arises if you made a profit. Profits and losses from different transactions can be offset.
- Income tax liability also arises when receiving dividends and interest.
- If you have not sold securities and you are not using the investment account system, you have no obligation to declare anything.
Investment account system:
- Make sure that your internal bank investment accounts are marked as investment accounts in your income tax return declaration.
- Every deposit and withdrawal must be declared.
- Income tax liability arises if withdrawals from the investment account exceed deposits.
- The investment account allows you to defer the payment of income tax on dividends and interest.
- Note – investment account data must be submitted to the Tax and Customs Board every year, even if you made no securities transactions during the year.
If you have used both systems for investing, the investments must be declared separately according to each system.
Frequently asked questions
Investments
If you have concluded an agreement for the management of a securities portfolio in the Robo-Advisor of the SEB mobile application, then you have trusted SEB with putting together your ETF portfolio. However, you need to add the data to the income tax return yourself.
To help with income returns, SEB has added an assistant for declaring investment income to the Internet Bank. It has access to all the necessary information for submitting the data regarding the investment account and can be used for sending the data to the e-Tax online environment. We have explained how to use the assistant for declaring investment income in the guidelines for declaring investment income.
If you hold an investment portfolio that only contains ETFs at SEB, please read the guidelines for submitting the data below. If you have other investments as well, please review the guidelines for the assistant for declaring investment income as well.
When declaring income from an ETF portfolio of the Robo-Advisor, please keep in mind the following:
- The SEB assistant for declaring investment income is available in the SEB Internet Bank.
- You should declare this service as a portfolio account in the open investment account system (hereinafter, we will refer to it as a 'portfolio account').
- We recommend that you use the SEB assistant for declaring investment income when submitting the data of the portfolio account, as it contains all necessary data for declaring the portfolio account as an investment account. You only need to review the data, approve it, and send it to the e-Tax environment.
- If you also use the account from which you transfer money to the portfolio account as an investment account when investing with the Robo-Advisor, then you should declare both accounts.
- If you do not declare the portfolio account as an investment account, then you must declare the sales transactions made on the account and pay income tax if necessary.
- If you need to change the details of the investment account after submitting them to the e-Tax environment, then you can correct the data within one year by using the SEB assistant for declaring investment income, for example. Through that, you can also send the changes to the e-Tax again. If the need for changing the details arises later, please contact the Tax and Customs Board.
If you have used the microinvestment service in SEB Internet Bank and have invested in exchange-traded funds (ETFs) listed by the bank, you need to enter the data yourself on your income tax return.
To facilitate the declaration, SEB Internet Bank has created an investment income declaration assistant, which contains the information necessary for declaring an investment account and through which you can send the data to the e-Tax Office. We explain how to complete the declaration assistant in the investment income declaration instructions.
When declaring microinvestment ETFs, we recommend that you pay attention to the following:
- The SEB declaration assistant is available in SEB Internet Bank.
- You should declare microinvestment ETFs according to whether you used the investment account or regular account system.
- When declaring ETFs, we recommend that you use the SEB investment income declaration assistant, where you can find all the data necessary for declaring as an investment account. All you need to do is review the data, confirm it and send it to the e-Tax Office.
- If you did not use the investment account system, you must declare sales transactions made with micro-investments and pay income tax if necessary.
- If you need to change the investment account data after submitting them to the e-Tax Office, you can correct them within three years, using MTA e-service. From there, you can also re-send the changes to the e-Tax Office. If the need to make changes arises later, please contact the MTA.
Income from the sale of bonds is subject to taxation. An investment account allows Estonian taxpayers to defer taxation of income from investments.
If you have purchased bonds for an investment account and wish to defer income tax on interest payments, you must notify the bond issuer.
If you closed your securities account within the past year, then you can declare your data through the menu item 'Investment income'. If you would like to see a transaction statement of your securities account, then you should contact the bank.
You can review your transactions under the menu item 'Investment income'. The menu item 'Investment income' includes dividends received during the tax return period, which must be checked. Baltic dividends are listed in the securities account statement; information on the dividends from foreign securities can be obtained on page 3 of the investment income 'Review of transactions on the investment account and data of the regular system'.
If a minor holds an investment account, then it must be declared annually.
The data on transactions sent by the assistant for declaring investment income can be seen in the e-Tax environment from the next full hour. Sometimes, data moves slower, so if it is not there by the morning of the following working day, please contact the Tax and Customs Board.
If you have opened an investment account but have not made any contributions, then you do not have to declare it. The data of an investment account must be declared after making the first monetary contribution. Subsequently, you must add the monetary contributions and disbursements of an investment account to your income tax return every year. An investment account must be declared annually even if you have made no securities transactions or monetary transfers in the meantime or if all of the money transferred to the investment account has been invested and the balance of the investment account is 0.
In this case, you do not have to include the account in the report on investment income at SEB. An investment account must be declared each year, even if no securities transactions or transfers of funds have been made on it during the year.
A contribution to an investment account is income received on the investment account, except the following transactions:
- sale price of financial assets;
- transfer from another investment account of the account holder;
- dividends or interest earned on financial assets, subject to income tax, from which the payer has not withheld income tax.
In addition, you can declare as contributions:
- initial balance on the opening day when starting to use an existing account;
- the transfer of a service fee for the purchase of financial assets from another account if the purchase could not be made with the funds on the investment account.
A disbursement from an investment account is every disbursement from the account, except the following:
- purchase of financial assets;
- transfer to another investment account of the account holder;
- transfers of service fees for the purchase, sale, and exchange of financial assets.
In addition, the following must be declared as disbursements:
- final balance on the closing day in the case of declarative closure;
- income earned on financial assets which is subject to income tax (sales amount, dividends, interest), from which income tax has not been withheld and which was not transferred to the investment account immediately.
You can correct the income tax return of the previous year and declare the investment account data on it. To correct an earlier income tax return, you should contact the Tax and Customs Board. The declaration forms of previous years cannot be sent directly to the e-Tax environment from the SEB system, so that information must be added manually to the system of the Tax and Customs Board.
Deposits and settlement accounts
On 1 January 2018, the taxation of interests changed: income tax is charged on any interest payable to a resident natural person and the payer of interest is required to withhold a 20% income tax on payout.
If the deposit of a resident individual is linked to a current account, the bank deducts income tax from the payment of interest earned on the deposit. This happens even if the deposit was opened from an investment account, but the deposit is linked to a settlement account for the purposes of interest payments.
For the deferral of tax liability, you must open the deposit from an investment account. You must also transfer the amount and interest of deposit to the investment account when terminating the deposit.
Pursuant to the Income Tax Act, in order to defer tax liability, the client must inform the bank that the interest in question has been received from the financial assets acquired for the money in the investment account. At our bank, you can provide such notification when opening an investment account for all the financial assets from which you will transfer the income to the investment account in the future.
You do not have to declare or pay interests yourself. The bank withholds and declares the income tax and pays it for you.
Customers who receive deposit interest subject to income tax will continue to see two entries on the account statements: transfers of interest and of income tax. When calculating the income tax, the normal rules of rounding are followed.
For example: if you conclude an agreement for a 12-month deposit (365 days) for the amount of 500 euros with the interest rate of 0.30%, the bank will transfer 1.52 euros in interest to your account and withdraw 30 cents of income tax from your account at the end of the deposit period.
All interest rates that the bank publishes are in gross amounts. This means that taxes have not been subtracted from interest rates.
Some customers (such as companies, non-residents, users of the investment account system) do not have to pay income tax on deposit interest. Therefore, publishing interest rates with and without tax is not reasonable, keeping in mind the complicated tax system.
Since 2019, data on interest earned on bank deposits has been added to your pre-filled income tax returns automatically.
Pension
As pension investment accounts belong in the second pension pillar system, customers do not have to declare investment income earned from pension investment accounts, just like they do not have to declare contributions to the second pillar. Taxation takes place at the moment of disbursement.
Dividends paid by an Estonian enterprise to a pension investment account must be declared as income received by the pension investment account. Dividends from other countries do not have to be declared. Similarly, received interest does not have to be declared, but once already taxed, it should be documented as income of the pension investment account.
Information regarding voluntary pension funds of the third pension pillar is already added to the pre-filled tax return of the Tax and Customs Board. If necessary, you can find the data on contributions and disbursements of your third pension pillar on the website of the Pension Centre by logging in to your account. Contributions to the third pension pillar funds and the insurance agreements of the mandatory funded pension are deducted from the taxable income in the maximum amount of 15% of the annual taxable income, but no more than 6,000 euros. The amount of taxable income can be impacted by disbursements made from the third pension pillar during the year. For an income tax refund, you must file an income tax return.
The Tax and Customs Board assists with submitting income tax returns
Often, people contact the bank with various issues related to income tax returns, but the bank does not advise on tax-related matters and does not know when tax refunds will be paid. Please contact the Tax and Customs Board regarding issues related to submitting your income tax return.
If you have any questions, please contact the Tax and Customs Board.
An excellent summary of the most important changes to the 2025 tax return is available on the website of the Tax and Customs Board.
Important dates related to the 2025 tax returns
- Income tax returns can be submitted from 15 February in the e-Tax online environment of the Tax and Customs Board and the offices will also start issuing pre-filled income tax returns on paper.
- From 5 March, the Tax and Customs Board will begin to refund income tax to customers who submitted their returns through the e-Tax environment.
- From 18 March, the Board will begin to refund income tax to customers who submitted their returns on paper.
- The deadline for the submission of income tax returns is 30 April.
- The deadline for the payment and refund of income tax is 1 October.
